Ten Most Harmful Books of the 19th and 20th Centuries

Human Events Online ^ | May 31, 2005 | Human Events

[hinterlander]

HUMAN EVENTS asked a panel of 15 conservative scholars and public policy leaders to help us compile a list of the Ten Most Harmful Books of the 19th and 20th Centuries. Each panelist nominated a number of titles and then voted on a ballot including all books nominated. A title received a score of 10 points for being listed No. 1 by one of our panelists, 9 points for being listed No. 2, etc. Appropriately, The Communist Manifesto, by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, earned the highest aggregate score and the No. 1 listing.

[krunkygirl]

save

[avg_freeper]

On Liberty
by John Stuart Mill
Score: 18

Why is that on the list?

I've come to believe conservatives by and large fall into two groups: there are William Bennett and PJ O'Rourke types.

Some of the conservative thinkers polled in this exercise are probably within the Bennett camp and would see "On Liberty" as dangerous.

On a side note, I think that whatever magic has been used to glue these two groups of thought together in order to form the modern conservative movement is starting to erode. And liberals are getting better at exploiting our differences and getting us to fight internally.

[Antoninus]

Excellent list. It's frightening to see how many of the books on that list were required reading for me in college.

Coming of Age in Samoa and On Liberty should probably be higher up the list, IMHO.

[sauropod]

See my post about Darwin and eugenics.

[BikerNYC]

"The Nazis loved Nietszche"

Yes. The Nazis loved Wagner, too, so his music must be bad.

[ChicagoHebrew]

Nowhere near influential enough to do any real damage. Thankfully, Al Gore ain't exactly an eternal best seller.

[BlackRazor]

Darwin's books. Everything evil on that list, such as Communism and Neitzchiesm, spring from that.

The Communist Manifesto was published 11 years before Charles Darwin published his theories on evolution.

[ChicagoHebrew]

No kidding. Far more harmful than half the books on the list.

[RKV]

Lots of people believed in eugenics, not just Darwin. Take US Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. in Buck v. Bell (1927) for instance. "It is better for all the world, if instead of waiting to execute degenerate offspring for crime, or to let them starve for their imbecility, society can prevent those who are manifestly unfit from continuing their kind…Three generations of imbeciles are enough."

[DoctorMichael]

Nothing related to Creationism?

[sauropod]

Read The Ominous Parallels by Peikoff and then come back and make that statement.

[CarolinaGuitarman]

"But Darwinism proposes something much more (sinister) than simple adaptation: it proposes that one species evolved into another. How so? Well, by the additon of a special, unobserved ingredient. Time."

There is nothing in the genetic code that acts as a stop sign saying *You have adapter this much, but Ye shall adapt no more!* And time is an observable, measurable phenomena.



" First it was millions of years. Now, it is billions and billions of years, soon to be explained as trillions of years."

It became billions of years not to satisfy the evolutionist but because of the discovery of radioactive decay. The 6,000 to 10,000 year old earth was discarded by geologists BEFORE Darwin. It will not be explained in the trillions because the universe is only about 15 billion years old. Unless you can cite for us where you learned it would *soon* become trillions, your just blowing hot air.

[Celtjew Libertarian]

"Baby and Chidcare Book" by Benjamin Spock.

Funny thing... At my son's bris, there were three gen-X guys -- myself (a Jewish libertarian Republican), the godmother's husband (a conservative southern Baptist), and the godfather (a gay man, somewhat areligious and apolitical at the time).

One of the guests (a silent generation guy or very early boomer), mentioned Dr. Spock positively. Simultaneously, us three gen-X guys just exploded, blasting away at Dr. Spock's child-rearing advice. The older generations just sat their stunned -- I think my mother tried a token, "Well, he was good on health advice," but that was about it.

But it was amazing that the three of us, from different backgrounds and with somewhat different beliefs had the same, gut, visceral reaction against Dr. Spock. Granted, we were friends with each other, so we had some common beliefs -- but still.... Well, let's just say I think the influence of Dr. Spock has considerably waned.

[x]

Marx, Lenin, Hitler, and Mao certainly were dangerous. So was Fanon, and in his own way, Nietzsche. Kinsey's book was dangerous and spurious. But while Croly or Dewey or Comte were dangerous in a way, were they anywhere near as destructive as Hitler, Lenin, or Mao? Did John Stuart Mill or Rachel Carson really do more harm than good? Darwin was dangerous because of what people did to his work, but if the evidence at the time pointed in the direction of his theories, doesn't his work belong more to science than to politics or ideology?

The list has a whole "us good -- them bad" basis that made perfect sense in the Cold War, but that looks a little threadbare now. It's less a question of sides right now than it is of taking a close look at things and trying to make sense of them. To the degree that it is a question of sides -- of the West vs. militant Islam -- we may find that we are more on Mill's or Comte's or Kant's or Darwin's side than we might have wished. Perhaps Human Events is right after all, but it's better to try to figure things out on our own rather than accept judgments handed down by authorities.

[CAPTAINSUPERMARVELMAN]

Great list. Except for the presence of Darwin's books, I agree with the entire list. Good post.



It was Darwin's book that inspired many on this list if I recall

[sauropod]

Yep.

[newheart]

"My perception is that while Darwin's theories have their problems, there is at least some truth to the idea of natural selection. Otherwise every animal breeder in history was a whack job. As to a literal interpretation of Genesis - well, it doesn't look to me like God created the earth in 7 24-hour days."

I really don't disagree with anything you say here. However, I can still disagree that natural selection is a sufficient explanation of the origin of man.

[Aquinasfan]

A worthwhile endeavor and a perfect list. I can't argue with any of the selections.

Funny how the Church used to be ridiculed for Its Index of Prohibited Books. I'm sure most if not all of these made the Index in their day.

Here's a partial listing. I'm happy that all of Sartres books made the list. Ideas have consequences. Bad ideas have bad consequences. Reading isn't always good. What you read is what matters.

[WildHorseCrash]

All this hatred for a biological theory.

Not hatred, but, rather ignorant boobery mixed with religious fanaticism. It's the idiot wing of the conservative movement making an ass of itself again. I think for it to really be hatred, you need to have some basic knowledge of the subject matter under discussion. And even a cursory glance at the evolution threads shows that you can accuse creatards of many things, but knowledge is not one of them.

[Billthedrill]

I'd have kept Auguste Comte off the list. Sociology has had its distortions, but then third-rate students and jocks have to get a degree in something.

;-)